Hello! We are a family owned business run and operated by a mother & daughter team. We work hard every day to bring you delicious, made-from-scratch cupcakes and special order cakes and other desserts.

We bake daily and use high quality ingredients in our baking. For example, we don’t use any shortening in our frosting. Only butter, cream and high quality vanilla imported from Mexico. We make sure the quality is what we personally would want to eat in a dessert.

If you want to watch us do our thing, our shop has an open concept with windows surrounding. It is likely you will see us putting together a special birthday or wedding cake most weekends!

If you have any kinds of allergies or a special diet, we can do special order Gluten-free, Paleo, Vegan, dairy-free items for you. Let us know what we can do to help you with your next special event!

ABOUT SHELLY (Mother)

Shelly grew up with a close-nit family that all loved cooking and baking. Learning to bake from her mother and Grand-mother who would actually have her and her siblings hunt and gather for fresh blackberries in Oregon while visiting and then showed them how to make fresh jam and pies from them. In raising her 3 daughters (Sabrina, Sarah and Lily), she always taught them how to bake. Making cookies and pies during holidays was always a fun family event.

Shelly’s background includes owning a house cleaning business, being a personal and executive assistant to several top CEO’s in the area working in Marketing and Sales as well as working for her Church for several years. This experience has given her the tools she needs to successfully run a business on her own.

When Shelly’s middle child, Sarah, was 14, she home-schooled her and as a part of her home-schooling education they both took several cake decorating classes at the local Michael’s and she fell in love with decorating. She started making cakes for all of her friends and acquaintances who would just rave about them. Eventually people wanted to hire her to make their special occasion cakes and so a business was born! Doing this out of her home under the Florida Cottage Food Laws, when the shop in Safety Harbor came up for sale, it was the perfect opportunity to expand her business and finally live her dream of being a cupcake/bakery owner and she quit her full-time job and dove in!

In addition to baking and cake decorating, Shelly has also assisted many friends and other companies with full catering and wedding planning. She enjoys helping and anything in the area of culinary arts and party and wedding design.

Shelly has continued her education in the baking arts by taking specific classes in the area and out of state to further her abilities and education in decorating.

ABOUT SARAH (Daughter)

Ever since she can remember, Sarah has always loved to bake and anything having to do with the baking and culinary arts. Randomly baking cookies and cakes and other delicious desserts on a regular basis from a young age.

When 14, she was home-schooled and her entire graduation program revolved around the pastry arts. She took cake decorating classes with her mother and learned many skills that she now uses today.

Sarah graduated High School with A’s at the age of 16 and from that time has helped her mom on a regular basis with her cake decorating and baking.

Now 21, Sarah is attending the Pinellas Technical College Baking & Pastry Arts program and is a partner in running the bakery with her mother.

In school she is learning all of the science behind baking and how to do all kinds of desserts including donuts, pies, biscuits, etc. Once complete with her schooling, Designer Cakes & Desserts will be offering many more dessert options.